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Observations on Homosexual Orientation in Antiquity

The subject of sexual orientation in antiquity is discussed here as a topic of a 'mission to the West' because recent, revisionist interpretations of the Church's consistent teaching on homosexuality through the millenia undermine the Gospel that a culture going through its own revisions and becoming increasingly post-Christian needs to hear: God transforms sinful human beings through the good news of Jesus Christ. Even sinful orientations, entrenched as they are (Aristotle called them, among other things, 'states of character'), can be transformed. Here, the subject is that Paul would have known about the idea of sexual orientation since his culture did. Thus, he does not oppose homosexuality in ignorance of orientation--as though we know more today and can therefore ignore Paul's teaching.

John Shelby Spong believed, along with any number of
other persons discussing Christianity and homosexuality, that the ancient world
knew nothing of sexual orientation. This
was one of his key arguments in trying to revise the Church’s teaching that
homosexuality is a sin:

… any
reference to same-sex practice by a Biblical writer or a Greco-Roman writer has
no knowledge or understanding of the concept of “same-sex orientation.” There is no Hebrew or Greek cognate word in the
Biblical text to reflect the modern term “same-sex orientation” or
“homosexuality.” Moreover, there were no discussions or arguments concerning
sexual orientation in the ancient and late ancient world, conversations that
would only arrive in the modern era of psychology. Instead, ancient writers
believed any wanton sexual behavior of any variety is a mismanagement of one’s
appetites. The apostle Paul, in the New Testament, follows this pattern.’[1]

Victor Paul Furnish concurred:

The
ancient writers were operating without the vaguest idea of what we have learned
to call “sexual orientation.”[2]

This view, like certain other views about what ancient writers at the
time of Scripture supposedly did not know (such as loving, committed homosexual unions in antiquity), can only be held by those who have
failed at the scholarly task of researching primary sources in antiquity. Sadly, one finds this misrepresentation of the early Christians' social context among 'scholars' often enough. The following essay summarizes material
mentioned in Unchanging Witness: The
Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition
and in an earlier article, but it also offers a few other quotations of
interest for this subject.[3]

Martial,
Epigrams XII.75: Polytimus is hurrying to the
girls, Hymnus doesn’t like admitting that he’s a boy, Secundus has
buttocks acornsated [receives anal sex], Didymus is effeminate (mollis)
but doesn’t want to be, Amphion could have been born a girl….

2. Romantic
Love (not just sexual gratification) in Pederasty

In our
day, pedophilia is generally considered a matter of sexual deviancy. In antiquity, love of grown men for boys was
not only thought of in terms of sexual desire but also in the same way as
heterosexual romance—attraction, desire, and romantic love. Here is one major difference between
pedophilia and pederasty. Plato explored
the ideal of love itself, in either heterosexuality or homosexuality (in this
case, pederasty) (cf. Phaedrus). In
pederasty, argued Plato’s character Pausanias in the Symposium, a higher love—a celestial love that was wholly
male—proved superior to love between a man and a woman. This love went beyond sexual indulgence, and
the discussion goes beyond any limitation of male love to boys. Such philosophical arguments demonstrate that
love and sex were understood in far deeper ways than just acts or pederasty,
and the discussion of a male love moves firmly in the direction of the notion
of sexual orientation. As Virgil says,

In the 4th
century BC—well before the New Testament authors wrote—Aristotle noted that the
homosexual’s nature was expressed in particular behaviors. Homosexuality was not considered merely in
terms of an act—it was a whole way of life that could be related to physical
characteristics. He says,

Physiognomonica 6:Shrill, soft, broken tones mark the speech of the pathic, for such
a voice is found in women and is congruous with the pathic’s nature.[5]

Temperaments and attractions were also the subject of medical theory in
antiquity. The 2nd century
medical author, Galen, built on earlier theories about the relation between
body types and temperament. The
phlegmatic person could be a soft male. Maria
Michela Sassi summarizes one of the orientations that Galen identified (cf. Opera Omnia 13.662):

the phlegmatic and
cold/wet categories include the constitutions (all of them soft and white) of
women, children, fair-skinned men, eunuchs, and peoples that live in cold
regions.[6]

Kyle Harper’s recent examination of primary sources reaches the similar
conclusion that

folk belief had long
held that women were underheated and incompletely formed men: moist, clammy,
the female body had been contrived by nature to play its role in the continuous
regeneration of the species, ‘born to be penetrated.

For men, too, manliness was a matter of degree, and the insufficiently
masculinized male became damp, soft, and, in extreme cases, an “androgyne” [man-woman].[7] The attempt to
relate body types to sexual preference was an attempt to explore sexual
orientation in antiquity.

4. Astrology
and Sexual Orientation

Astrology is the attempt to explain human orientations and
events with reference to the movement of the planets and stars. In antiquity, it also tried to explain sexual
orientation, including homosexuality.
The following explanation of natural and unnatural sexual orientation
from the perspective of astrology uses terminology (‘against nature’ and
‘according to nature’) also found in Paul—that is, the language for orientation
was well established. (Of course, Paul
did not follow the astrological explanation for orientation.)

Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos III.14.171-172:But if likewise
Mars [planet/god of war] or Venus [planet/goddess of love] as well, either one
of them or both, is made masculine, the males become addicted to natural [kata physin] sexual intercourse, and are adulterous, insatiate, and
ready on every occasion for base and lawless acts of sexual passion, while the
females are lustful for unnatural
congresses [para physin—also
Paul’s phrase in Romans 1.26], cast inviting glances of the eye, and are what
we call tribades; for they deal with females and perform the
functions of males [andrōn erga].
If Venus alone is constituted in a masculine manner, they do these things
secretly and not openly. But if Mars likewise is so constituted, without
reserve, so that sometimes they even designate the women with whom they are on such terms as their lawful “wives.

5. Philosophy, Mythology, and Sexual
Orientation

There was a significant
difference between Platonic and Stoic philosophy on the issue of
homosexuality. Platonic philosophy, as
already noted, thought in terms of ideals, such as Beauty and Love, whereas
Stoic philosophy thought in terms of living according to nature. Thus, Platonism could idealize love for
teenage boys and preference it over sex with women if the attraction was the
ideal of Beauty and not purely physical lust.
Stoic philosophers, such as Musonius Rufus and Epictetus, on the other
hand, saw homosexuality as ‘contrary to nature’ (Paul’s term, too, in Rom.
1.26). Plutarch, for example, saw
homosexual orientation as an internal disorder peculiar to humans and not found
in other animals:[8]

Not even Nature [physis], with Law [nomos]
for her ally, can keep within bounds the unchastened vice of your hearts; but
as though swept by the current of their lusts beyond the barrier at many
points, men do such deeds as wantonly outrage Nature, upset her order, and
confuse her distinctions (Plutarch, Whether Beasts are Rational 7).

In Romans 1.18-28, Paul,
too, argues from nature that idolatry and homosexuality are against the
Creator’s design.

However, a natural
argument might also be turned in favor of homosexual orientation if one argues
for different ‘natures’ being created
in the first place (a view contrary to Scripture, of course [cf. Gen. 1.27-28;
Gen. 2.24]). The pre-Platonic myth of
the creation of more than two genders (males with a heterosexual orientation,
females with a heterosexual orientation, males attracted to males, and females
attracted to females) was mentioned in Plato’s Symposium. The speaker,
Aristophanes, says,[9]

Plato, Symposium
191: “Each of us,
then, is but a tally of a man, since every one shows like a flat-fish the
traces of having been sliced in two; and each is ever searching for the tally
that will fit him. All the men who are sections of that composite sex that at
first was called man-woman are
woman-courters; our adulterers are mostly descended from that sex, [191e]
whencelikewise are derived our man-courting women and adulteresses. All the women who are sections of the woman
have no great fancy for men: they are inclined rather to women, and of this
stock are the she-minions. Men who are sections of the male pursue the
masculine, and so long as their boyhood
lasts they show themselves to be slices of the male by making friends with men
and delighting [192a] to lie with them and to be clasped in men’s embraces;
these are the finest boys and striplings, forthey have the most manly
nature….

6. The Acquisition of Homosexual Orientation
through Social Factors

We should not limit the
notion of ‘orientation’ to natural inclinations or biology in the arguments
from antiquity. The discussion of
orientation is not only a biological one: it might also be a matter of nurture
and therefore a concern of psychology and sociology. This perspective, too, was well discussed in
antiquity. Plato, for example, suggested
that a culture of unbridled sexual passion led to sexual deviancy against
nature, and that this was encouraged by the introduction of the gymnasium into
Greek society:[10]

Plato, Laws 1.636b-c: … this institution [the gymnasium, with its naked males], when
of old standing, is thought to have corrupted
the pleasures of love which are natural not to men only but also natural to
beasts. For this your States [Lacedaemon and Crete] are held primarily
responsible, and along with them all others [636c] that especially encourage
the use of gymnasia. And whether one makes the observation in earnest or in
jest, one certainly should not fail to observe that when male unites with female for procreation the pleasure experienced
is held to be due to nature [kata
physin], but contrary to nature [para physin] when male mates with male or female with female, and that those
first guilty of such enormities were impelled by their slavery to pleasure.

Philo, a first century
Jewish philosopher in the Platonic tradition, relates uncontrolled desire,
socialization, and homosexual orientation:[11]

Philo,
Abraham 1.135-136:… they were overcome by violent desire; 136 and so, by degrees, the men became accustomed to be treated like women, and
in this way engendered among themselves the disease of females, an intolerable
evil; for they not only, as to effeminacy and delicacy [malakotēti kai thrypsei], became like women in their persons…

Herodotus, too,
had earlier spoken of societies that took on certain practices that led to new
orientations, including homosexuality:[12]

Herodotus,
The Histories 1.135.1:
But the Persians more than all men welcome foreign customs. They wear the
Median dress, thinking it more beautiful than their own, and the Egyptian
cuirass in war. Their luxurious practices
are of all kinds, and all borrowed: the
Greeks taught them pederasty.

The practice of pederasty, moreover, knew a
variety of distinctions in antiquity—there were social and cultural
distinctions that could be observed.
Xenophon, for example, distinguishes three different practices:[13]

Xenophon, The
Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 2.12:I think I ought to say something about intimacy with boys, since this matter
also has a bearing on education. In other Greek states, for instance among the
Boeotians, man and boy live together, like married people; elsewhere, among the
Eleians, for example, consent is won by means of favours. Some, on the other
hand, entirely forbid suitors to talk with boys.

Sextus Empiricus noted
different social attitudes towards pederasty, and in so doing identified the
cultural contribution to sexual orientations (as we also find, note, in Genesis
19.9):[14]

Outlines
of Pyrrhonism 3:198-200:For example, amongst us sodomy is regarded as [199] shameful or
rather illegal, but by the Germanic they say, it is not looked on as shameful
but as a customary thing. It is said, too, that in Thebes long ago this
practice was not held to be shameful, and they say that Meriones the Cretan was
so called by way of indicating the Cretans’ custom, and some refer to … the
burning love of Achilles for Patroclus. And [200] what wonder, when both the
adherents of the Cynic philosophy and the followers of Zeno of Citium,
Cleanthes and Chrysippus, declare that this practice is indifferent?

7. Artistic Temperament and Homosexual
Orientation

As today, the argument
for sexual orientation in antiquity was also made with respect to artistic
temperament. Aristophanes represents
this view with respect to homosexual orientation in his play, Women at the Thesmophoria:

Women
at the Thesmophoria 1.35.159ff: Besides, it is bad taste for a
poet to be coarse and hairy. Look at the famous Ibycus, at Anacreon of
Teos, and at Alcaeus, who handled music so well; they wore head-bands and found
pleasure in the lascivious and dances of Ionia. And have you not heard what
a dandy Phrynichus was and how careful in his dress? For this reason his pieces
were also beautiful, for the works of a poet are copied from himself.

Softness (womanliness)
and poetic talent in a man, the argument goes, go together.

8. Unrestrained (Natural) Sexual Desire
Becoming Unnatural Desire

The following quotations
show that the notion that lust is not merely to be thought of in terms of
quantitative desire but also qualitative desire—desire that goes beyond natural
boundaries. This point now needs to be
emphasized, since James Brownson has suggested that Paul’s concern in Romans
1.26-27 is about unrestrained lust, not unnatural, homosexual practice: the
distinction is artificial.[15]

Philo, Abraham 1.135-136
… they were overcome by violent desire; 136 and so, by
degrees, the men became

accustomed to be treated like women, and in this
way engendered among themselves the disease of females, an intolerable evil;
for they not only, as to effeminacy and delicacy [malakotēti
kai thrypsei], became like women in their persons….

Plutarch, Whether
Beasts are Rational 7 Not even Nature [physis],
with Law [nomos] for her ally, can keep within bounds the
unchastened vice of your hearts; but as though swept by the current of their
lusts beyond the barrier at many points, men do such deeds as wantonly outrage
Nature, upset her order, and confuse her distinctions.

9.ACorrupted Nature/Orientation

The notion of a
sexual orientation is discussed in literature that focusses on the corruption
of nature. Ancient philosophy made the
discussion of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ a major subject of debate. (The topic will be explored in more detail at
a later date.) Consider Plutarch’s
comments about the nature of animals and humans in his work on love:

Plutarch,
De Amore Prolis [On Affection for Offspring] 493B-E: … we
seek among horses and dogs and birds how we ourselves should marry and beget
and bring up children (as though we had no plain indication of Nature in
ourselves) and that we term the traits which brute beasts have “characters” and
“emotions,” and accuse our life of a great deviation and departure from
Nature [kata physin], confused and disordered as we are at the very
beginning concerning even the first principles? For in dumb animals Nature
preserves their special characteristics pure and unmixed and simple, but in
men, through reason and habit, they have been modified by many opinions and
adventitious judgements so that they have lost their proper form and have
acquired a pleasing variety comparable to the variety of perfumes made by the
pharmacist on the basis of a single oil. And let us not wonder if irrational
animals follow Nature more closely than rational ones; for animals are,
in fact, outdone in this by plants, to which Nature has given neither
imagination nor impulse, nor desire for something different, which causes men
to shake themselves free from what Nature desires; but plants, as though
they were fastened in chains, remain in the power of Nature, always
traversing the one path along which Nature leads them. Yet in wild
beasts versatility of reasoning and uncommon cleverness and excessive love of
freedom are not too highly developed; and though they have irrational impulses
and desires and often wander about on circuitous paths, they do not go far
afield, but ride, as it were, at the anchor provided by Nature, who
points out to them the straight way, as to an ass which proceeds under bit and
bridle. But in man ungoverned reason is absolute master, and, discovering now
one way of deviation and innovation and now another, has left no clear or
certain vestige of Nature visible.

10.The
Designation of Certain Males as ‘Soft’

As with the previous point, there is much literature
that could be cited in reference to ‘soft males’, a term (malakos) that Paul uses in his sin list in 1 Corinthians 6.9. The point here is that this is an
‘orientation’ term, not a term that has to do only with acts.[16]

Aristotle,
Nichomachean Ethics 7.5-7: One who is
deficient in resistance to pains that most men withstand with success, is soft
[malakos] or luxurious (for Luxury is a kind of Softness): such a
man lets his cloak trail on the ground to escape the fatigue and trouble of
lifting it, or feigns sickness, not seeing that to counterfeit misery is to be
miserable…. But we are surprised when a man is overcome by pleasures and pains
which most men are able to withstand, except when his failure to resist is due
to some innate tendency [dia physin tou genous], or to disease:
instances of the former being the hereditary effeminacy [malakia]
of the royal family of Scythia, and the inferior endurance of the female sex as
compared with the male.

11.The
Existence of Homosexual Unions and Marriages

This is a subject not
fully explored in the literature. Those
arguing that Paul knew nothing of loving, committed homosexual relationships in
his day are simply claiming things they really know nothing about. I shall present this evidence at a later
point but will offer one of the relevant quotations from antiquity on the
matter. The presence of such texts
demonstrates that Paul argued against homosexual practices in a context that
did know of homosexual marriage or unions.
Consider Juvenal on this:

Juvenal, Satire II: I have
a ceremony to attend,” quoth one, “at dawn to-morrow, in the Quirinal valley.”
“What is the occasion?” “No need to ask: a friend is taking to himself a
husband; quite a small affair.” Yes, and if we only live long enough, we shall
see these things done openly: people will wish to see them reported among the
news of the day. Meanwhile these would-be brides have one great trouble:
they can bear no children wherewith to keep the affection of their husbands;
well has nature done in granting to their desires no power over their bodies.

Conclusion

The discussion of
sexual orientation, including homosexual orientation, was present in antiquity
and is not some modern discovery through the social sciences. A variety of views were offered to explain
the sexual orientation that some have for same-sex relationships. This orientation was expressed not only in
terms of the desire for an act of same-sex intercourse: it was also discussed
in terms of orientation. As I argue in Unchanging Witness,[17] Paul, too thought in
terms of both homosexual orientation and acts when he stated in consistent
interpretation of the Old Testament that this was sinful.

He also thought in
terms of nature and nurture. He offered
a religious and moral interpretation of homosexuality. At the root of his understanding of sexuality
stood convictions about God’s order in creation and human sinfulness. He also offered hope for change through the
transforming grace of God in Jesus Christ’s liberating death to sin and
resurrection to new life. Thus, one
cannot argue that Paul’s views on homosexuality can be dismissed because
antiquity knew nothing of sexual (including homosexual) orientation. Indeed, antiquity had much to say on the
subject. Nor can one argue that Paul
would have counselled someone struggling with same-sex attraction simply to
avoid acting out such desires. His view,
as expressed in detail in his letter to the Romans, of the transforming power
of God in the Gospel of Jesus’ Christ’s death and resurrection was far bigger
than that.[18]